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Bruce D. Brown, a former reporter and media lawyer, will be the new executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — a key advocate for press freedom and freedom of information in the United States.

A bid to drop the legal requirement that drinking water utilities mail annual "Consumer Confidence Reports" reports on any contaminants in water delivered to customers fell short in the Senate June 21, 2012. An amendment, by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), would have allowed utilities to deliver the CCRs to their customers online, rather than via US Postal Service.

What's in that derailed railcar or overturned tanker truck? The answer is often visible on a hazmat placard affixed to the vehicle (we suggest binoculars). The placard often includes a "UN number" which you can look up in the "Hazardous Materials Table" published in the Code of Federal Regulations, among other places.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility is charging the National Park Service with duplicity for multiple reasons regarding demotion of the North Country, Ice Age, and New England Trails, which collectively span 6,020 miles.

The Food and Drug Administration secretly captured e-mails of FDA employees suspected of whistleblowing for agency laxity in protecting the public — but ended up also reading correspondence with reporters, lawyers, and Congress.

EPA says it could instead compile a database partly from information collected by some states. But that information is often spotty and inconsistent — which will make it hard for EPA to compile it and even harder to make useful conclusions from it. And the withdrawal may make it harder to get the information disclosed.

If your local utility burns coal, there is likely an environmental story about coal ash to be reported near you. A FOIA request by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice has produced the identities of another 451 coal ash dumps (than previously listed by EPA), raising the total to at least 1161.

A large and diverse array of businesses have an interest in the environmental and energy laws that state legislatures consider: including coal, oil, plastics, chemicals, mining, forest products, and others. The possible financial stake lawmakers may have in the bills before them is fertile ground for investigation. Here's help in finding story ideas.

Under FOIA, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility requested FDA documents justifying its use of categorical exclusions to avoid assessing the environmental impact of not regulating livestock antibiotics. After FDA failed to provide any, PEER filed a lawsuit in federal district court.